a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Game 7 vs. MEM: *nods head in approval*

Again, from my place of low-ish expectations, I have no complaints. The young guys competed and were awarded with playing time, and the Jazz won. Let’s say the Jazz gave this one away in the final minutes. I still would’ve preferred that to an inefficient, sluggish, the-Jazz-got-lucky win like the one against New Orleans earlier this week.

Quotage** Brevin Knight (who’s announcing Memphis games now) on whether he would’ve liked to have played for Jerry Sloan earlier in his career:

No, I think I got him at the right time. I got him when he was telling a lot of jokes, he wasn’t that hard, and I liked the Jerry that I got to know. Some other people say, you just be happy that you got the easy Jerry, but he was a guy that always demanded you respect the game of basketball. [That’s] the biggest thing that I took away from him.

Of course his system was what it was, I played against it for enough years that I came in and didn’t even have to do much in terms of running the offense. But it was just how much people respected him, played hard for him on both ends of the court.

He had stars–Karl Malone, John Stockton–played the game the right way for that many years, it’s just a compliment to him and how much they respected him. So I enjoyed it. I’m glad I got the chance to say that I was able to play for one of the greatest coaches that ever coached basketball. (1)

** Al Jefferson, post-game: “We gotta get one of them [Gasol] brothers out to the east man. We can’t have both of them in the west.” (1)

** Al Jefferson, post-game:

Derrick just said earlier, me and him was talking in the shower, and he said he can’t score like me. I told him no, you just don’t get many chances to score like me. Once you start getting as many touches as I get, you could score. You get your confidence up.

I told him, just keep working ’cause I think he just as good if not better than me on the block, because he more athletic, he got high IQ for a young big man, and once he start earning Coach’s trust and they throwin’ it down there to him, he’ll be able to score just as well as me on the block. (1)

Loved this from Big Al. He’s been extremely complimentary of Favors and Enes Kanter this season and has often said that he can learn things from them. Great seeing him taking on a stronger mentoring role too.

** The body of BTS’ made-up Raja Bell controversy* the Salt Lake Tribune’s young players’ mutinous uprising against Ty Corbin story isn’t even cold yet, and BTS is at it again:

Let’s focus instead on these Al tweets from the Standard-Examiner’s Jim Burton…

…and these Raja tweets from the Deseret News’ Jody Genessey:

Kyle Korver Memorial Gay Elf Defense of the Night

Unintentional Dirty Quote Machines of the Night** Al Jefferson, shootaround: The longer we go, the better we’ll get.** Boler: It was bang bang bang in the bucket.** Boler: Mayo, silky smooth on his shot.** Harpring: You need to take me to dinner, Boler.** Harpring: The knock on Gay is that he doesn’t play hard.** Ty Corbin, post-game: Each guy on the floor took it upon themself to really get up into their guys.** Ron Boone:

Lontime lurker. I love your continual bashing of the people that deserve it. Someone needs to keep these people’s bad behavior in the light and in context. Your write up at sbnation was great as well and its funny seeing the people over at the warriors blog learning about their coach. Keep up the great work.